Are Blu Ray Players Ever Going to be Cheap?

[Julius Caro]

you can superpose the 1080p frame over the upscaled one aand then set one of the layers to "difference" to check that details are obviously missing in the upscaled one. You can even tell that details are missing from the downscaling the browser does to the pictures to fit the window. As for being able to actually spot the difference, have in mind that bandwidth-wise both detail and motion affect the quality of the picture you get to see. With those pictures it's pretty clear which one is the best one, maybe because of the color thing.

[Coldgunner]

Man... this topic started out with Ayepecks asking if BD would ever be cheap, and look where it's gotten. You guys should duke it out on IRC once and for all instead of rehashing your arguments in various threads ;)

yes, I think we got sidetracked. They will be cheap, think of DVD 10 years ago, and vhs 10 years before that?

[Eric Veteran]

Btw.. to show you exactly what I"m talking about.. I will show you 2 frames here.. one is full 1080p frame and the one is 720p frame upscaled to 1080p just like your player does for the TV.

I must say that I see hardly any difference, and certainly not enough to warrant buying another disc player. I'll stick with my current DVD player and save money. :)

[Boz]

yes, I think we got sidetracked. They will be cheap, think of DVD 10 years ago, and vhs 10 years before that?

I disagree. When DVD came out it was significantly better technology then VHS and there was no other technology/technologies that were aiming for home entertainment market. Fast forward today and you have at least 2 more technologies fighting Blu-ray for mainstream market and have much better chances at that too.

Everything gets cheap after 10 years, but the question is whether Blu-Ray will survive that long to begin with. To make something cheaper you need to have mass acceptance. Something that Blu-Ray won't have by 2013 by ABI Research (and that's even questionable). You will most likely see a huge overhaul with cable companies to support digital downloads faster then prices for Blu-Ray going down because digital downloads again have numerous advantages over physical media (easier backup, huge catalogs of movies available at your fingertips without leaving the couch, better and better quality, cheaper price, easier and less expensive production costs for studios and networks etc etc).

As I said, I think it will be come increasingly obvious that optical media is becoming obsolete, just like Audio CDs are with the age of mp3s and digital music, only now when movies get involved and circle is complete content wise everyone will go for it, from TV to music and videos. Who wants to spend money making Blu-Rays or even DVDs in the future when we already see the trend of falling sales and outsourcing to on-demand, digital downloads etc etc..

As I said, the quality of 1080p over 720p is pretty much unrealistic by many fanboys and since like 2% (I pulled that number out of the air but you get the point) of HDTV owners actually have 55"+ TVs and projectors that go on the wall, this is completely irrelevant and digital downloads already have a bunch of 720p content. In a few years, that content will be upgraded to full 1080p when it makes sense without any additional cost to consumer as the infrastructure is already there.

This is the reason why I posted the screenshots that clearly show the "hype" over 1080p for any normal consumer.

My 2 cents.

Edited September 1, 2008 by Boz

[Coldgunner]

I don't think digital downloads will take off anytime soon. Consumers often want something tangiable. CD's still outsell downloads even though downloads have been going for several years.

one thing is for certain, the visual quality of BD far outclasses both broadcast and downloaded HD. many downloads and broadcasts suffer from nasty blocking, bad transfers and low bitrates.

[Boz]

I must say that I see hardly any difference, and certainly not enough to warrant buying another disc player. I'll stick with my current DVD player and save money. :)

Nope GreyWolf .. I think you misunderstood..this is not DVD upscaled against HD.. this is 720p HD against 1080p HD.. There's absolutely no difference. The color differnce as I explained is because I saved the other image without ICC profile when I uploaded. They are identical in colors too.

I will post here just for the sake of it how 480, 720p and 1080p looks like of the same frame. Even though you will see a noticable difference between SD DVD and 1080p HD.. you will see why people are not super in a hurry to get Blu-Ray.. the screenshots are taken from the latest Street Kings BD.

480p footage upscaled to 1080p

720p HD upscaled to 1080p HD

1080p full HD no upscaling

[giantpotato]

Everything gets cheap after 10 years, but the question is whether Blu-Ray will survive that long to begin with. To make something cheaper you need to have mass acceptance. Something that Blu-Ray won't have by 2013 by ABI Research (and that's even questionable). You will most likely see a huge overhaul with cable companies to support digital downloads faster then prices for Blu-Ray going down because digital downloads again have numerous advantages over physical media (easier backup, huge catalogs of movies available at your fingertips without leaving the couch, better and better quality, cheaper price, easier and less expensive production costs for studios and networks etc etc).

Easier backup? How so? I don't know of any legal digital downloads that make it easy to make a copy. How are you going to backup those Vudu downloads you're touting. Forget about backing up, what if I want to watch my movie on my PSP or ipod? Blu-Ray has digital copy, what does Vudu Have?

Better quality? you've got to be kidding me. Vudu states a 250GB hard drive can hold up to 50 movies. A 1080p movie that's 5GB? That's smaller than a DVD at 8.5GB I very much doubt a HD movie with a 4Mbps bitrate can be better quality than a ~25Mbps+ Blu-Ray. Not to mention the inferior 5.1 sound.

Cheaper? barely. $19.99 for some movies which are inferior quality to Blu-Ray, and missing the extra features found on DVD's and BD's. Not to mention the cost of the Vudu set-top-box. $299 when I could pay less for a Blu-Ray player.

The distribution costs will be cheaper for the studios because they're passing on the costs of distribution to the consumers who will have to pay for more expensive uncapped internet connections.

My prediction: Digital downlods will be here to stay, but will be a niche market, like pay-per-view is. Eventually Blu-Ray will replace DVD. But hey, that's just my two cents.

[libertas83]

I don't think digital downloads will take off anytime soon. Consumers often want something tangiable. CD's still outsell downloads even though downloads have been going for several years.

one thing is for certain, the visual quality of BD far outclasses both broadcast and downloaded HD. many downloads and broadcasts suffer from nasty blocking, bad transfers and low bitrates.

CD's outsell digital downloads but how about piracy? How many people pirate music instead of buying it? A lot.

Digital downloads far out pace CDs if you include piracy in the figures. With movies, there is still a barrier because good quality downloads are the size of two CDs, but can be done. There alot of people who use Netflix to pirate and these were average people who are not as tech savvy as me.

Problem with Blu-Ray is by the time it reaches maturity like DVD, it will be too late and digital downloads will take over. That is why HD-DVD was brillant, it would have reached mass prodcution quicker and allowed the format to flourish. Blu will be laser disc, only for the people who care. My best friend has both and will not replace all his DVDs with Blu. He will only buy Blu if he sees something he likes and most of the time, that is not the case.

[Boz]

Easier backup? How so? I don't know of any legal digital downloads that make it easy to make a copy. How are you going to backup those Vudu downloads you're touting. Forget about backing up, what if I want to watch my movie on my PSP or ipod? Blu-Ray has digital copy, what does Vudu Have?

Better quality? you've got to be kidding me. Vudu states a 250GB hard drive can hold up to 50 movies. A 1080p movie that's 5GB? That's smaller than a DVD at 8.5GB I very much doubt a HD movie with a 4Mbps bitrate can be better quality than a ~25Mbps+ Blu-Ray. Not to mention the inferior 5.1 sound.

Cheaper? barely. $19.99 for some movies which are inferior quality to Blu-Ray, and missing the extra features found on DVD's and BD's. Not to mention the cost of the Vudu set-top-box. $299 when I could pay less for a Blu-Ray player.

The distribution costs will be cheaper for the studios because they're passing on the costs of distribution to the consumers who will have to pay for more expensive uncapped internet connections.

My prediction: Digital downlods will be here to stay, but will be a niche market, like pay-per-view is. Eventually Blu-Ray will replace DVD. But hey, that's just my two cents.

Listen.. you are commenting on something you don't have.. I have it.. there's USB expansion and you can copy your movies to external HDDs as backup.. you can't play them on other devices but you can back them up.. optical media.. nope.. you can't do anything... LEGALLY.. your Blu-Ray disc gets scratched.. WHOOPS gone $20 or $30.

Today's compression technologies are far more advanced then MPEG2 and that's why the new HD online movies still look fabulous. This is something that's not even debatable.

Here's an advice.. before you actually comment on something technologically, try not to put your "doubts" before actually owning or seeing things and how they look and work..it just makes you seem horribly fanboyish.. k?

[Julius Caro]

in that last example (keanu reeves) the 1080p source doesn't seem to be much more detailed. try to use something juicier.. like pirates of the caribbean!

[Boz]

in that last example (keanu reeves) the 1080p source doesn't seem to be much more detailed. try to use something juicier.. like pirates of the caribbean!

Doesn't matter...the point here is that this on average the quality.. Pirates and a few others are extremely rare.. most of them fall into this category.. they are definitely better then SD but not that much. The fact is because of this people are not really that impressed with blu-ray and don't see a significant difference enough to adopt. And if that doesn't happen, then prices won't go down.. simple as that.

[Coldgunner]

Doesn't matter...the point here is that this on average the quality.. Pirates and a few others are extremely rare.. most of them fall into this category.. they are definitely better then SD but not that much. The fact is because of this people are not really that impressed with blu-ray and don't see a significant difference enough to adopt. And if that doesn't happen, then prices won't go down.. simple as that.

It matters, it skews the comparison. Take a modern film like Spiderman 3. It looks great on dvd as it does on blu ray. The two versions are taken from the same source with the only difference being resolution, yet there is a massive difference in the detail.

When DVD came out, the difference we're very clear. a solid picture after each and every play, whereas vhs would deteriorate. Also with the advent of widescreen tv's widescreen anamorphic releases made sense. most people have never seen a blu ray, give it time and like dvd it'll spread. More and more tv shows are going blu now and in the next few years the blu ray release of a movie will get priority. Another factor is shelf space, as more and more catalogue and new releases arrive, blu ray will gain greater store presence.

Deny it as much as you like, its gonna happen.

[Julius Caro]

The thing that I don't understand is that.. when HD-DVD was around, it was as good if not better than Blu-ray, in terms of picture quality and sound quality, and that bluray was only an expensive version with more DRM and 50gb discs. But now that HD-DVD is gone, bluray quality is subpar, and upscaling dvds was enough quality all along.

Personally, I didn't give a **** which won, although I supported bluray because I had a ps3 and because the 50gb might make a difference in the future (we could be using DVDs for "720p is good enough" HD if they had had more space in the beginning.

[Richard Hammond]

If you think Blu-ray Quality is subpar blame the studios doing the transfers, Blu-Ray supports the EXACT SAME specs HD DVD did, if the Studios do a crap transfer then the film on Blu-ray or HD DVD will look crap as well.

Bored of people whining about DRM, the only reason people have a right to whine is when they are trying to make illegal copies of discs, even then its easy with AnyDVD HD, but DRM shouldnt be a deciding factor when you want to pay for films and watch them from the disc.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

The thing that I don't understand is that.. when HD-DVD was around, it was as good if not better than Blu-ray, in terms of picture quality and sound quality, and that bluray was only an expensive version with more DRM and 50gb discs. But now that HD-DVD is gone, bluray quality is subpar, and upscaling dvds was enough quality all along.

Personally, I didn't give a **** which won, although I supported bluray because I had a ps3 and because the 50gb might make a difference in the future (we could be using DVDs for "720p is good enough" HD if they had had more space in the beginning.

Because HD-DVD doesn't exist now, some people need a new campaign to start on the VS Blu Ray scene, and that supposedly now is upscaled DVDs - Not in the obvious sense of price, which is a fair comparison, but people are trying to say there is practically no difference between an upscaled SD DVD, and an HD Movie.... your source is still standard definition...

Quite funny seeing as you pointed out, BR/HD-DVD are exactly the same spec wise, only BR has some more disc capacity.

HD is HD, SD is SD.

Make a choice, stick with it for as long as you want.

The actual title question (no offence poster) is pretty damn stupid.

Are Blu Ray Players Ever Going to be Cheap?

That's like saying will the Pentium Core 2 Duo ever be cheaper a year or two after it's out?

The answer is an obvious yes. All consumer technology comes down in price, if you don't know that, you're living under a rock or forcing yourself to believe otherwise to argue your face off.

Edited September 1, 2008 by Audioboxer

[Joel]

Quite funny seeing as you pointed out, BR/HD-DVD are exactly the same spec wise, only BR has some more disc capacity.

And that extra capacity meant exactly nothing, since movies were already fitting on both formats just fine. Ask me about computer storage, and that's a new ballgame. But movie viewing + capacity limitations of HD-DVD and BD = N/A

And it was still a selling point for BD. That's where FUD came in.

That said, there IS a difference between SD and HD content. I see it on my HD discs. Upconversion is not enough for all, though for some people I could see easily why it would be.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

And that extra capacity meant exactly nothing, since movies were already fitting on both formats just fine. Ask me about computer storage, and that's a new ballgame. But movie viewing + capacity limitations of HD-DVD and BD = N/A

And it was still a selling point for BD. That's where FUD came in.

That said, there IS a difference between SD and HD content. I see it on my HD discs. Upconversion is not enough for all, though for some people I could see easily why it would be.

It'll mean something when we start seeing TV shows put on BR.

The more space, the more series on one disc. I hate boxsets when they come with like 9 DVDs.

But for the BR/HD-DVD argument it didn't really mean much at the time when the arguments were raging on.

Other than for those who wanted a future with a larger capacity disc.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Anyone ever watched Band of Brothers on an HDTV, but just the DVD? The picture looks amazing, and it isn't even in HD.

That street kings screen shot looks like someone just adjusted the colour of their set. I am not in a super rush to get blu-ray, but I admit it does look better.

I only really notice a huge difference when watching HD sports. NFL looks AMAZING on HDTV

[goji]

NFL looks AMAZING on HDTV

And there we have it folks, the reason HDTV was invented ;)

[notuptome2004]

It'll mean something when we start seeing TV shows put on BR.

The more space, the more series on one disc. I hate boxsets when they come with like 9 DVDs.

But for the BR/HD-DVD argument it didn't really mean much at the time when the arguments were raging on.

Other than for those who wanted a future with a larger capacity disc.

the more space on BD does not mean 1 series on 1 disc as a point to this

http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Season-Blu-ra...8NATHRMBQHNEEBT

Heroes season 2 on Blu-ray

# Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen

# Language: English, Japanese

# Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

# Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)

# Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

# Number of discs: 4

# Rating:

# Studio: Universal Studios

# DVD Release Date: August 26, 2008

# Run Time: 482 minutes

4 discs .

[DaDude]

Getting back to the original question: Are Blu Ray Players Ever Going to be Cheap? The answer is yes, but you have to wait. Demand for HDTV and Blu-ray is still EXTREMELY high, so the prices will remain high until demand cools down.

[Joni_78]

First DVD player cost about 700 ? and it took f****** ages for prices to drop below 200 ?.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

personall i dont see BR players comming down in price, expecially since Sony is keeping the marketing of PS3 as the cheepest most compatable BR player avaliable

i think they (Sony) did an interview a while back saying BR players will never be cheaper then the PS3, forget a source for that atm though

[peacemf]

demand is high, but right now most western economies are taking big hits, so its most likely that prices will remain the same for a while......

[Ayepecks]

The actual title question (no offence poster) is pretty damn stupid.

That's like saying will the Pentium Core 2 Duo ever be cheaper a year or two after it's out?

The answer is an obvious yes. All consumer technology comes down in price, if you don't know that, you're living under a rock or forcing yourself to believe otherwise to argue your face off.

Audio, you know damn well that was a hyperbole, especially given what the original post said. Don't flame bait me.

The question, as I have reiterated, is whether or not there's any new players coming out that are cheaper, if any prices are expected to drop anytime soon, etc.

Blu-Ray has been out two years now and the requirements to actually build a Blu-Ray player have to have dropped given that Sony is supposedly making a very small profit on the Playstation 3 right now, which includes a Blu-Ray player and a wealth of even more expensive equipment... and yet it's still one of the cheapest Blu-Ray players. So don't tell me it's the technology that has to drop in price. It already has.